Abstract

The main purpose of China’s foreign aid and foreign investments was, and is, to help Chinese leaders realize foreign policy objectives. Hence, taking cognizance of and assessing China’s external goals, complex as they are, makes its aid and investments more comprehensible.

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Notes

2.

See A. Doak Barnett, The Making of Foreign Policy in China: Structure and Process (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985) p.77 for information that puts this body in the context of the policy-making bureaucracy. Dumbaugh and Martin suggest that leading small groups “facilitate consensus building and coordination.” They are mentioned in the Party’s constitution. See Dumbaugh and Martin, “Understanding China’s Political System,” p. 11. Also see Linda Jakobson and Dean Knox, “New Foreign Policy Actors in China,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, September 2010.Google Scholar

7.

See Lu Ning, “The Central Leadership, Supraministry Coordinating Bodies, State Council Ministries, and Party Departments,” in David M. Lampton (ed.), The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 45.Google Scholar

20.

Carol Lancaster, “Foreign Aid in the Twenty-First Century: What Purposes?” in Louis A. Picard, Robert Groelsema, and Terry F. Buss (eds.), Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half-Century (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2008), p. 47. Also see Jakobson and Knox, “New Foreign Policy Actors in China,” p. 10. The Ministry of Commerce, or more accurately its predecessors, and their counselor offices around the world worked closely with recipient countries and acquired considerable experience and expertise in giving aid. As China’s economy was decentralized under Deng Xiaoping, it lost some of its authority over aid giving. This was restored to some degree when China’s economy was subsequently recentralized. See Shuaihua Cheng, Ting Fang Hui-Ting Lien, “China’s International Aid Policy and Its Implications for Global Governance,” Working Paper (Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business Indiana University), June 2012. pp 5–6Google Scholar

This began with the Opium War, which many see as marking the beginning of a 100-year period of China’s humiliation, which included embarrassment caused by Western countries and Japan taking advantage of China. One writer comments that the pre-Communist history of modern China was “essentially one of weakness, humiliation and failure.” See Harold C. Hinton, Communist China in World Politics (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), p. 6.Google Scholar

60.

One scholar notes that communism to Mao was “vengeance against the past and the West.” See Joseph Levenson, Revolution and Cosmopolitanism: The Western Stage and the Chinese Stages (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1971), p. 54.Google Scholar

Mao said: “Internationally we belong to the anti-imperialist front, headed by the Soviet Union.” He further stated that we “can only look for genuine and friendly aid from that front and not from the imperialist front.” See Mao Tsetung, On People’s Democratic Dictatorship (Peking: English Language Service of the New China News Agency, 1949), p. 9. Mao made his “lean to one side” comment in this same publication.Google Scholar

71.

The Chinese Communist Party, as seen in early documents and manifestos, had long taken the view that due to imperialism China was “still dominated by a feudal system of militarists and bureaucrats” and that “until the Chinese proletariat is able to seize power” this would not change. See Benjamin Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (New York: Harper and Row, 1951), p. 39.Google Scholar

The dispute also had global ramifications. Some writers, in fact, see it as the most important factor in international politics for two decades or more. See G. W. Choudhury, China in World Affairs: The Foreign Policy of the PRC Since 1970, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982), p. 126.Google Scholar

It is interesting to note that China even extended a “gift” to Russia (not to mention paying for large quantities of oil and gas) for US$ 400 million for a feasibility study on building a spur to the East Siberian-Pacific Ocean pipeline that would go to China. “CNPC to Issue $400 Mln Grant to Build ESPO Pipeline Branch to China, Interfax, March 22, 2006, cited in Michael R. Chambers, “Framing the Problem: China’s Threat Environment and International Obligations,” in Roy Kamphausen and Andrew Scobell (eds.), Right-Sizing the People’s Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China’s Military (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2007), p. 38.Google Scholar

129.

Mao Tse-tung, “Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle,” in Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Volume 4 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1969). Mao at the time declared: “All those wars of aggression, together with political and cultural aggression, have caused Chinese to hate imperialism.”Google Scholar

See Robert G. Sutter, Chinese Foreign Relations: Power and Policy Since the Cold War (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), p. 137. Over the first three decades of its existence the People’s Republic of China deployed its military 11 times beyond its borders. See Allen S. Whiting, “The Use of Force in Foreign Policy by the People’s Republic of China,” The Annals, July 1972, pp. 55–66. Of the three major conflicts after World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Sino-Vietnam War, China was involved in all of them. See Kishore Mahbubani, “America’s Place in the Asian Century,” Current History, May 2008, p. 195.Google Scholar

196.

See, for example, Jenny Clegg, China’s Global Strategy: Towards a Multipolar World (London: Pluto Press, 2009). More relevant to China’s foreign aid, one writer states that China cannot cope with American military power directly and therefore must rely on its “massive economy to counter… balancing efforts against it.” Aaron L. Friedberg, “Bucking China: An Alternative to U.S-China Policy,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2012, p. 50.Google Scholar

200.

See Mao Tse-tung, “Address to the Preparatory Committee of the New Political Consultative Congress,” and “The Chinese People Have Stood Up,” both in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1977).Google Scholar

Ted C. Fishman, China Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World (New York: Scribner, 2005), p. 75. It is worth noting that few unemployed workers had unemployment insurance. According to one source, only 2 percent had either full or partial insurance. See China Human Development Report 2005, p. 42, 65 and 87, cited in Lampton, The Three Faces of Chinese Power, p. 222.Google Scholar

Jianwei Wang, “China’s New Frontier Diplomacy,” in Sujian Guo and JeanMarc F. Blanchard (eds.), “Harmonious World” and China’s New Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), p. 24. The “go out” policy was established in 1999 by the Chinese government with the help of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.Google Scholar